The company could certainly afford to bid for the Premier League rights. The last round of UK TV rights, for 2010 to 2013, sold for £1.7bn. Apple has almost $10bn (£6.4bn) in cash and around another $70bn (£45bn) in cash alternatives and marketable securities.

A bigger question is how useful Premier League rights would be to Apple. They would help to establish Apple TV in Britain, whether that means a stand-alone television or a set-top box, and would make it easier to lure customers away from Sky. But would Apple pay almost £2bn simply to establish their service in Britain?

Premier League TV rights would also have some value for the Asian market but in the US, where the rights currently belong to Fox and ESPN, the sport remains a minority interest.

There has been plenty of speculation over the couple of years that Apple would move into selling televisions, though the relatively slow sales of its Apple TV boxes suggested that the company didn't see TV as a priority.

However, Steve Jobs, Apple's late chief executive, told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that he had "cracked" the problem of building a television. When the book was published, shortly after Steve Jobs died, rumours of an Apple TV intensified.